Good Morning, Good July!  This summer month normally kicks off the hot and hazy days!  This year, it is cool, blessedly cool, after the heat dome of last summer that brought our temperatures abnormally over 45 degrees, let forest fires rage and brought choking smoke to the air around us.  

These paintings started from a dream of overlapping waves, which in the studio, evolved to include bubbles of oxygen.  The imagery coalesced with the current series which concerns itself with the patterns and habits that underpin and support our daily actions.  

Can you think of any more action more essential and constant than the repetitive beating and breathing of our heart and lungs?  The dream's cascade of waves became structured like the ribs that house these vital organs, while in the centre the oxygen collects, as if under our sternum, in the passage up and out of our throat.

The blue tonal range evokes both water and air.  As the ocean's plankton and plants produce between 50 to 75% of the oxygen in the globes atmosphere, they are inextricably linked to our gift of life.

1)   Air         Acrylic on Paper, 22x30 inches
2)  Breath    Acrylic on Paper, 22x30 inches
3)  Sea Air   Acrylic on Paper, 22x30 inches

          Detail

            Detail

 Hey all, 

Here are a few watercolours that capture the blossoms that lightened our moods this spring. This particular bouquet, filled with chocolate hellebores, lilacs and a type of yellow ground cover from the garden, took my attention for a few weeks. Placed in a beautiful vintage, turquoise vase, the combination of colours were unusual and striking. 

In the top painting, I was interested in the deep tones and velvety texture.  In the second, the subject was the light playing across the forms.  Two different approaches to express two different moods.  

As summer bumps away spring and starts to settle into the landscape, I hope to do weekly paintings of the flora here in the Okanagan Valley.  Wishing you all well.

2019! The year has sped past, kicked off in January by a major show at the Surrey Art Gallery.  Over forty works spanning thirty years of art practice.  Beginning with the early, realism based works, and culminating in the recent abstract dynamic works, the show traced the evolution of my core conceptual challenge of understanding perception. 
A show catalogue was printed and is available on request.
The plan moving forward in 2020 is to take key developments in the abstract work and paint large canvases of each series.  In the meantime, I am also continuing my education in oil painting, using floral motifs as the subject.

A very Merry Christmas to all.


"Hydrangea Blues" Oil on Canvas   9x12 inches

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There are some flowers that seem to evoke memories

 more than others.  Hydrangeas fill that spot for me.  

Maybe it's in the colour combinations, maybe it's in the detail,

these hydrangeas have an ageless romance about them.  

5x7 inch, oil,  framed, ready to hang.

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Whether by thd colour of the blooms or by shadow on 

white petals, the blues  have it in this next batch of paintings.

 Each is framed and ready to hang.

"Happiness"  Asters & Dahlias    Watercolour 4.5x4.5 inches 

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 "Blues"  6 x 8 inches, oil 

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"Secrets of the Garden"  9x6 inches, watercolour 

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Last year, around this time, the hazelnuts were beginning to fall.  Bushy tailed squirrels foraged all day long and by nightfall, not much was left to harvest!  I love the wild and jagged frill on these nuts.  They make the nut look quite exotic!  Watercolour  5x7inches

Above "Crazy Dance of the Hazelnut"

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Below:  "Hazelnut Fling"   Sold

 Another sign of fall, acorns with their little caps! 
"Hidden"  (Sold)

The summer is heading towards closing and with the fall gold light,

yellow ochre, sienna and umber cannot be far behind. 

 5x7 Watercolour, Roses and Rose Hips. 

 Available framed  at Daily Paintworks

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